Letter to Doug Ducey, Arizona State Treasurer Candidate

If your race to be the next state treasurer is successful, you will oversee approximately $9.7 billion in assets, and as a constitutional officer sit third in the line of succession to the Governor. You will provide investment services to local governments, and possess audit authority over all of Arizona's finances. Given these enormous responsibilities, voters have the right to know that their state treasurer puts the public interest ahead of personal gain.

As you are aware, Arizona law requires you to file a financial disclosure statement with your nomination papers. State law mandates that you disclose "all businesses and trusts" in which you have an "ownership or beneficial interest of over one thousand dollars." You disclosed merely that you are the trustee of a revocable trust with assets over one hundred thousand dollars, but filed nothing else about the trust's assets. Your attorney wrote to Secretary of State Bennett that absent amendment to the statute, you are "not required to disclose the assets." This signaled your intent to comply with the bare minimum that the law requires. While the Secretary's office did not find reasonable cause that you violated the letter of the law, your attorney explained that any further disclosure is simply a matter of your choice.

Mr. Ducey, the spirit of the law is clear. Arizona voters deserve to know the investments in which you have a personal, beneficiary interest because the position of treasurer has such broad authority over Arizona's finances. It is consistent with good government that you share this basic information with the electorate, and I call on you to choose further disclosure rather than legal hairsplitting. The public has a right to monitor conflicts of interest, particularly concerning Arizona's financial dealings. I hope you will follow the example of your opponents in this race and disclose your investments in a straightforward manner. The public interest demands more transparency in its elected officials, not less.